


Failed attempts at courting

by Ghelik



Series: The 100 Fics [22]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Echo is into Bellamy, F/M, Fluff, Grounder Culture, Implied Relationships, Love, Romance, grounders courting, mentions of Memori, or my attempt at fluff and lightheartendess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-15
Updated: 2017-03-15
Packaged: 2018-10-05 20:12:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10316084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghelik/pseuds/Ghelik
Summary: exactly what it says on the tin





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [xorchidx](https://archiveofourown.org/users/xorchidx/gifts).



> For @xorchidx, who wanted a Roan-POV I can't give her.  
> Not exactly what you wanted, but it has Echo being clueless and Roan being slightly less clueless, so I hope you enjoy it anyway.

“A marriage to Wanheda would be ideal,” says Chris, sitting to his left, Reynard nodding eagerly, Alex is polishing her nails feigning disinterest, which means she thinks it’s a good idea, too.

 

Roan fights the urge to roll his eyes at his apparently completely blind advisors. Not for the first time he thinks he’s not cut out for this. His brother was the one groomed to be a king, to follow his advisor’s advice and be generally regal and commanding.

 

He shakes his head, but Rainard cuts in, speaking with the wide vocals and expressiveness of a puppy on joby nuts typical for his region “Chris is right. We cannot trust a simple treaty. A marriage is important.” He’s looking over Roan’s shoulder when he adds waggling his eyebrows. “Also, imagine _her_ riding towards your heir.”

 

Chris smirks and even Alex looks up at the blonde wanheda. Roan _does not_ pinch the bridge of his nose but is a close call. Because, yes, Clarke is a very attractive woman, but there is a list as long as his forearm of reasons why even thinking about proposing an arranged marriage to her is not a good idea. The main one, standing a foot away from her, scowl in place and mouth set in a severe line. “She’s already married,” he tells his advisors because the mess that is Wanheda and her Knife’s relationship is something he doesn’t want to approach with a ten-foot-long pole.

 

“That is not what she said”, says Alex to her fingernails. “She explicitly stated that she isn’t.” The advisor’s sharp blue eyes raise to Roan’s, a soft smile on her lips. “Also Echo seems interested in the Wanheda’s Knife.”

 

Chris snorts and promptly looks around to make sure Echo isn’t anywhere near him. Being all around the same age, Chris, Roan, and Echo grew up together, which means the king’s advisor learned from a very tender age not to mess with the king’s spy.

He shouldn’t have bothered, Echo is currently hunting some treat for Bellamy. Roan would make fun of Echo’s awkward attempts to get the skaikru's attention if he were doing any better on his own. And it’s not nearly as ridiculous for Echo to be tongue-tied and nervous around Bellamy, since, as far as Roan knows, the warrior has never before been infatuated with anybody. Roan, on the other hand, has courted many partners over the years; he was engaged for a brief amount of time before Haiplana Nia discovered his brother’s coup and decided to kill everyone involved. Including sweet Minnie.

 

“Even if she isn’t” he adds tiredly, “Skaikru leaders won’t allow their heiress and biggest assets to move to the Winter Palace. And it wouldn’t just be Clarke, Bellamy would tag along, too.”

 

“No arranged marriage is perfect,” sighs Alex, shrugging. From the three advisors he brought with him to the skaikru settlement in order to negotiate a full – official – peace treaty, Alex is the oldest. She was an advisor to Roan’s mother before him and ‘has seen some shit’ as skaikru would put it. She herself was forced into an arranged marriage at the tender age of twelve and has born her husband five children all but the youngest, who is still a young teen, in high-ranking positions in the Azgeda army.

 

“I am sure of it. But the point still stands. If the Chancellors don’t approve the union…”

 

“A compelling argument can be made.”

 

“They will not accept it,” Roan grumbles tiredly. There is an insistent pounding behind his eyes. It's getting annoying.

 

“Someone else, then,” Reynard’s eyes twinkle with mischief when he leans forward, forearms resting against his knees. “What about the dark mee-jaa-nik?”

 

Roan narrows his eyes at him while Chris tries and fails to be discrete as he elbows Reynard's side. “That is, surprisingly, not a bad idea,” Alex concedes. “She is not spoken for, from the Skaikru Inner Circle and you” she looks sharply at Roan “have made your interest in her clear.”

 

Roan splutters. He cannot think of a single reason why that is not a good idea, which feels wrong. He has been trying to turn Raven’s head for over a month, but the mechanic has a tendency to ignore his attention or brush him off. He has sat through hours of her distracted ramblings, only for Raven to blink at him as if she hadn’t noticed him sitting by her worktable. He has brought her food and ancient mechanical contraptions for her to tinker and has even attempted speaking to her. But he – much to everyone’s amusement – turns into his stuttering thirteen-year-old self around her.

 

“If this is settled, I’ll draft the final conditions for the skaikru to consider,” Alex stands up and marches away and into one of the two huts they’ve been given. 

 

“I really think you should reconsider asking Wanheda” says Chris. “Even if you have to take her Knife with you. It is the better choice.”

 

Reynard barks out a laugh. “Can you really imagine Wanheda and the Knife cooped inside the Winter Palace for three months? The sexual tension there would have everyone fucking like rabbits.”

 

Chris makes a face at his friend. “Come on, Roan. It’s not like you haven’t had your share of pretty boys.”

 

The king rolls his eyes. “Yeah, but I’d like not to be the odd one out in my own bed.”

 

“Also, there is the problem of children looking a little too much like the Knife and too little like the King.” By now Reynard is nearly in tears, even though neither Roan nor Chris find this particularly funny.

 

Roan huffs “Anyway, it has been settled. We will ask for Raven’s hand.”

 

“And no one has thought about the fact that she’s a cripple and how that will look to our people.” At once Roan snaps to attention, his eyes boring holes into Chris’ skull until the other man wilts and mumbles a quiet “I didn’t mean any disrespect, Haihefa.”

 

“Oh! Echo’s back” Reynard shakes their shoulders excitedly. Echo’s striding with long purposeful steps to where Clarke and Bellamy are seated at one of the tables strewn around the large gathering hall.

 

In times of peace, the warrior’s face is clean of war-paint, but she has painted her eyes with coal, like some girls like to do. As far as Roan knows, that is the only feminine treat she allows herself. Her hair has been pulled back into a long braid that swishes sharply behind her, and she’s dressed in a light linen short tunic that leaves her throat bare. She’s carrying a small writhing animal by the scruff of its neck and Roan has to fight the urge to smile at her.

 

During Azgedan courtships, it is customary to show off one’s hunting abilities, bringing back small animals one has been able to shoot with one single arrow; or larger ones, as proof of being able to sustain a future family.

 

Three days ago Echo had come into Roan's room, frustrated and confused. She had shot down hummingbird for Bellamy. Shot it right through the eye to show off her hunting skills and her marksmanship. Hummingbirds are difficult to hunt and their feathers are very valuable to Azgeda people. She had even made a special arrow to prevent damaging the skull. Yet, instead of being impressed or thankful for the gift, Echo described Bellamy's expression as 'utterly horrified'.  Apparently what Echo got from that fiasco was that Bellamy is of a ‘kind disposition’. So she has brought him something alive.

 

The three men hold their breath as Echo clears her throat to get the Knife's attention and promptly plops the small furry beast on his lap. The cub gives a tiny high pitched roar and Bellamy instinctively rubs its head, calming the beast that has left scratches all over warrior's forearms and legs into a purring ball of soft fur.

 

The two skaikru warlords exchange a look before carefully turning towards Echo. The warrior is blotchy with a not very becoming blush, her shoulders tense and hands clawing at her own pants like she has to physically restrain herself. If it’s from running way or launching herself on the object of her devotion, Roan isn’t sure. Without a word, she turns and stalks off with her trademark quick purposeful strides.

 

***

 

“I hate these sky people,” says Echo by way of greeting.

 

A few days have passed since she gifted Bellamy the baby panther – which has been adopted and received the name Sekhemed, because skaikru are ridiculous and Bellamy doubly so – and Echo has been all over the place, being at the same time too shy to properly talk to him and too bold to leave him alone.

 

“What have they done this time?” Roan asks as he stretches. In theory they’re meeting to spar. In theory, they’re meeting at the break of dawn, because they’re from up north and this summer is too hot and humid to do much of anything during most of the day.

 

They do actually spar – and bicker and complain about how these ridiculous sky people don’t understand subtlety and how they’re this close to just go and spell it out to them – but… They try to time their best moves with the highest chances they might have for the objects of their affection to see them.

 

Since the sparring ring is strategically situated on the path between the sleeping area and the mess hall where everyone goes to eat their sessions start pretty early and end rather late – because Raven is an owl and doesn’t emerge from her small hut until well past ten.

 

The good thing about it is that the mechanic always sits near the sparring ring with a cup of coffee, after grabbing her food from the mess hall, so Roan is feeling pretty confident that at least this is working – somehow.

 

“Harper found out about my infatuation” she grumbles, taking off her light tunic and shoes and slipping into the ring clad only in a skin-tight shirt and pants.

 

“I wonder how that happened.”

 

Echo punches him and he remorselessly swipes her legs from beneath her. “Shut up,” growls the assassin, kicking him on the side of the knee and destabilizing him enough to send him to one knee with another whip-like kick. “You’ve only been too obvious for a year now.”

 

“Ass.” She blocks both his blows and evades the sweep of his legs completely. “Anyway. Harper has given me advice. On how skaikru courts.”

 

Echo jumps at him, making him take a step back, and promptly uses his leg as a step to aim a blow at his face with her shin. Roan manages to duck, but Echo’s other leg drapes around his shoulder, hooking and she’s suddenly sitting there, completely destabilizing him and sending him once again to the ground.

“So what do they do?” Roan asks once he’s managed to slip out of the warrior’s grasp.He doesn't even try and mask the interest in his voice.

 

“They go out on ‘dates’, which are pointless strolls. They go to watch animated pictures. They tell stories.”

 

“That doesn’t sound too bad.”

 

“And there’s a tradition of gifting flowers.” She stumbles slightly back when he manages to land a blow. “Which is as pointless as the strolls. They don’t even need to be _useful_. Just pretty.”

 

For a few moments, they stay silent, concentrating on trying to get the upper hand in the sparring. “How are you supposed to decide if your partner is a good fit by their ability to find pretty flowers and walk aimlessly?”

 

Roan shrugs. It seems pretty pointless.

 

Then again, he _did_ have relationships in the past. Echo has never had that, she had learned from spymaster and queen Nia herself to use her body as she would a blade. If she ever needed to get something out of someone without using force she would just disrobe for them and fuck their brains out until they were like putty in her hands. She hasn’t had any sort of actual relationship and until she found Bellamy, Roan wasn’t even sure she wanted one.

 

Echo doesn't do _feelings_. She used to complain when he went to her with his, arguing how Minnie wasn’t that great, or seamlessly tearing down his infatuations with unhealthy doses of brutal honesty.

 

Roan remembers asking her why she even bothered, what about the Knife was so different? Echo had been blotchy with embarrassment and maybe one too many cups of skaikru’s moonshine. “He’s kind,” she had said, refusing to look at him. “And funny and caring. He would be a good father.

 

“Do you want to have children?” Roan remembers that had left him openly gaping at her. Echo had just snorted in a very un-ladylike manner. “Oh, hell no!” she had shrugged “But he does.” And that’s all the answer he ever got.

 

Roan shrugs “I don’t know.” But he does, because he’s spent hours listening to Raven’s incomprehensible ramblings, and even tolerated the company of the _frikdreina_ Raven has as an assistant. Has to admit he enjoys spending time, just ‘hanging around’. Sometimes they even share a meal – Raven and him, not the _frikdreina._ The assistant eats with skaikur’s fox on the fringes of the gathering hall. Yesternight Clarke dragged him to a pretty pointless card game with skaikru’s young inner circle – he got to sit across from Raven and together they wiped the rest of skaikru out, it was amazing.

 

“Yo! Roan!”

 

The king does not flinch, but it’s a very close call. He turns, a cocky smile on his lips and his heart does that little thing it always does when he sees Raven, arms crossed and legs separated in a clear no-nonsense stance. “I need you to do some heavy lifting for me.”

 

He has to squash the urge to grin like an idiot as he steps out of the sparring ring, falling easily in step with the mechanic. She’s so short, all hard lines of muscle among her well defined feminine curves. He has to admit he usually likes his women with a little more meat on their bones, but she’s still gorgeous.

 

They don’t talk much – mostly because he seems unable to string words into comprehensible sentences when he’s around her, how pathetic is that? – but the silence is agreeable, companionable and not strained in the least.

When he notices her watching him out of the corner of her eye he has to fight down the urge to preen. He winks at her and she blushes, which has him in a good mood for the rest of the day.

 

**Author's Note:**

> As always this was unbetaed. 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading.


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